4 Spec. Plant. Willd. iii. 926. Cl. 17. Ord.4;. Diadelphia Decandria. Nat. ord. Leguminosae. G. 1332. Stigma longitudinal, villous above. Filaments adhering to the germen. Calyx produced downwards. * * With ternate leaves. Species. C. Scoparius. Common Broom. Med. Bot. 3d edit.

413. t. 150. Smith, Flora Brit. iii. 753. De Candolle. Officinal. Scoparius, Lond. Spartii Scoparii summitates,

Edin. Cacumina, Dub. The tops and seed of Broom.

Syn. Genet a balais (F.), Pfriemenkraut (G.), Bezembren (Butch), Gyfvel (Dan.), Pingsblomnia (Swed.), Ginestra (I.), Esparto (S.), Giesta (Port.).

This is an indigenous shrub, growing on dry common pastures; flowering in May and June. It usually rises from four to six feet in height, and sends off numerous, straight, angled, green, smooth, leafy branches: the leaves are ternate, small, and smooth; the upper ones, however, are frequently simple. The flowers are papilionaceous, axillary, solitary, peduncled, nodding, large, and showy; of a golden colour; sometimes tawny on the outside, and occasionally altogether of a lemon hue: the calyx is nearly bell-shaped, bilabiate, gaping, even, and purplish, with a five-toothed lip: the stamens are all united into a tube at the base, and bear oblong saffron-coloured anthers: the germen is villous: the style bent almost to a circle: and the legume compressed, brown, ciliated, and containing several compressed shining seeds.

1 De Fructibus, ii. 45. t. 87.

2 The quince tree varies in the form of its fruit, which is sometimes globular, sometimes oblong, but more generally pyriform; and, also, in the magnitude of its leaves.

3 Although the fruit of the quince is not good in its raw state, yet it affords an elegant sweetmeat, called quince marmalade, mira cydonarium.; and from the expressed juice an excellent and wholesome wine is prepared.

Dioscoridis.

Qualities.-The tops, when bruised, have a disagreeable odour, and a nauseous bitter taste. Both water and alcohol extract their active matter.

Medical properties and uses. - Broom-tops are diuretic and cathartic : the seeds are said to be emetic. The effects of this plant have been very long known to the common people; and both Mead and Cullen found them useful in dropsy. The usual mode of exhibiting them is in the form of decoction, made by boiling j. of the green tops in a pint of water down to half a pint. Speaking of this decoction, of which two table-spoonsful were given every hour till it operated by stool, Cullen says1, "It seldom fails to operate both by stool and urine; and by repeated exhibition, every day, or every second day, some dropsies have been cured2:" Sydenham used the ashes, which contain an alkaline salt.3

Officinal preparation.-Extractum Cacuminum Genestae, D.